King tries to ban gay marriages on military bases

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) introduced an amendment on Thursday that would ban same-sex marriage on any military facility and prohibit any military chaplain from performing gay marriage ceremonies.

The Iowa Republican argued that President Barack Obama and the Secretary of Defense were “contravening” the Defense of Marriage Act by allowing military chaplains to perform same-sex marriages on bases.

King said a directive from the Secretary of Defense that said “a military chaplain may officiate any private ceremony on or off a military installation” was “not just permission that’s implied encouragement to conduct same-sex marriages on our military bases conducted by our chaplains presumably who are all under the payroll of the U.S. government.”

Military chaplains may decide to not perform same-sex marriages but King said any chaplain that did so was violating DOMA as the law of the land. The amendment would mean a full ban.

“The Defense of Marriage Act means this: Marriage means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife. And the word ‘spouse’ only refers to a member of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife. Pretty simple statute being contravened by the president of the United States as exercised through the Secretary of Defense,” he said. “This amendment prohibits the use of military facilities or the pay of military chaplains for being used to contravene the defense of marriage act.”

King “knows that current law already prohibits same-sex spouses from independently shopping at military commissaries, using base gyms or benefiting from subsidized dental and health care,” Dicks said. “We should have a debate on the effects of DOMA on our service members and their families, but introducing this contentious and discriminatory amendment is not the place.”

The House will vote on the amendment Thursday afternoon as part of the 2013 Defense Appropriations bill.